Evolving the Mobile Network

Light Reading recently published a two-part report on the testing and validation of Cisco's comprehensive next-generation mobile architecture. The report also covered the ability of the architecture to deliver "One Network, for Any G, for Any Screen."

Mobile Operators Face New Challenges Mobile data traffic and consumer demand for intelligent devices and personalized experiences have increased. Mobile operators are challenged to address a variety of new opportunities and transform their business models. Meeting these challenges requires a technical architecture that delivers high performance, high intelligence, and high availability.

Cisco Tests a Complete Mobile Network Cisco accepted a challenge from Light Reading and the European Advanced Networking Test Center for an independent, public test of a complete network. The Cisco network can support all generations of mobile network technologies, while delivering the capabilities and attributes that this evolving market requires.

We validated an impressive range of Cisco products for most of the pieces of the mobile puzzle. Cisco showed that they truly support all mobile network generations—from GSM (2G) and current generation UMTS (3G) to Long Term Evolution (LTE), the next generation of radio technology. Without exaggerating, our nine-month exercise was by far the largest and most in-depth public, independent, third-party test of mobile infrastructure vendor performance ever.

This test was the industry's first to simulate a mobile service provider's network on an enormous scale, including:

1.5 million active mobile subscribers across more than 4500 base stations

2G, 3G, and LTE on a single network, including mobile backhaul, network core, mobile packet core, and mobile data center

As a result of months of extensive testing, Light Reading and European Advanced Networking Test Center issued two reports: